1. Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to packaging of electronic components and, in particular, to thermal interface material (TIM) for use with electronic components.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Thermal management is a key task for an electronic packaging engineer working on high power integrated circuits such as microprocessors and pumped laser diodes, for example. There are two technical issues associated with the above thermal management. One issue is how to design a thermal interface material (TIM) that transports high heat flux emitting from the microprocessor or pumped laser diode chip effectively and promptly. The second issue is how to ensure measurements of thermal properties of a thermal interface material are accurate.
A goal of development of new thermal interface materials is to reduce thermal resistance (R) or equivalently the thermal impedance (θ). Thermal resistance (R) and thermal impedance (θ) are defined by:
                    R        =                  ρ          ⁢                                          ⁢                      t            A                                              (        1        )                                θ        =                              R            ⁢                                                  ⁢            A                    =                      ρ            ⁢                                                  ⁢            t                                              (        2        )            where, ρ is the thermal resistivity, equal to 1/k (k is thermal conductivity), A is the area and t is the thickness of thermal interface material.
There are two approaches to reducing thermal impedance (θ). One is to reduce thermal resistivity (ρ). The other is to reduce the thickness (t) of thermal interface material. There are several thermal interface materials that meet this challenge, but many still have limitations.